Rooney blasts Slot for Liverpool call Amorim would be ‘slaughtered’ for at Man Utd
Wayne Rooney has criticised Liverpool boss Arne Slot for a decision that Manchester United head coach Ruben Amorim would be “absolutely slaughtered” for.
Premier League leaders Liverpool put in a poor performance on Tuesday evening, losing 1-0 to Turkish champions Galatasaray in the Champions League.
It was the first time Liverpool had failed to score this season and marked back-to-back defeats for only the second time during Slot’s tenure at Anfield, following their Premier League loss to Crystal Palace on Saturday.
Victor Osimhen scored the only goal of the game from the penalty spot after Baris Yilmaz was fouled by makeshift right-back Dominik Szoboszlai.
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Szoboszlai, naturally a midfielder, was deployed at right-back with Jeremie Frimpong injured and Conor Bradley not fully fit earlier this season.
The Hungarian impressed, earning Player of the Match against Arsenal on matchday three, which helped earn him the nod again against Galatasaray.
To accommodate him, Frimpong was pushed further up to play on the right wing in place of Mohamed Salah, who started on the bench.
But this tactical gamble didn’t pay off, and Slot has faced criticism for the decision.
Manchester United legend Rooney was particularly unimpressed, arguing that if United boss Amorim had made a similar call — playing two players out of position — he would be “absolutely slaughtered”.
“I thought they [Liverpool] were really poor,” Rooney said on his BBC podcast.
“I think the worry for me would be, they’re losing the game and it looked like even with still quite a bit of time left to go, he just put every attacking player on the pitch and said like ‘go and figure it out’. And then, it could have got a lot worse for Liverpool during the game because with the amount of times they gave the ball away at the back and losing it and getting broke on and Alisson getting injured.
“I think when you win the league like Arne Slot did with Liverpool last season then sometimes some of the decisions you make get overlooked. I think his decision to play a midfield player at right-back and a right-back and right-wing.
“For instance, if that was Amorim at Manchester United, he’d get absolutely slaughtered.”
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Explaining his team selection against Galatasaray, Slot told reporters: “What you see is, and I think I explained this many times, is that there are a few players from us that missed pre-season so you simply cannot play them every single [game].
“Well, you can but then that could become a risk of players becoming injured. We have seen this more and more because the demands go up more and more, and if the demands go up you have to prepare players for these demands.
“That means that it is not always that I want to rotate but sometimes I need to because a player is not ready to play three times 90 minutes in seven or eight days.
“I like my squad so much, but we don’t have 25 or 26 [players], so if we end up with two, three or four injuries, 15 or 16 players, where Rio and Trey are two of these 15 or 16, then need to play almost all the minutes and then things can become complicated.
“But this is a decision we have made together, I completely believe in this, because if you have 25 [players] it’s very hard to manage your squad.
“But as a result of that, with Hugo, Alex, Conor and Mac Allister not having the pre-season a player should have, that also results in the fact that I cannot play them every time.”
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